She cut the darkness with a grin. “Just a little. Purely to get information.”
“Such as?”
“Three of them gave me their private cell numbers.”
“I’m not surprised. Those young bucks couldn’t take their eyes off you.”
“I’m talking about their fathers.”
He forced a chuckle. “You learn anything more useful?”
“Not much. Like they said, they’re here to hunt, though they seemed more interested in talking about their financial empires. One thing’s clear. They’re all pretty enthralled by their host. Especially how he greases the chute for them when it comes to medical matters.”
“Greases the chute?”
“They kept bragging how, thanks to Charles, they had access to the best specialists in New York. That’s something I notice a lot in Manhattan – people boast about their doctors with the same passion they show for cars, houses, or favorite baseball teams. Trouble is, they can’t all be right.”
He chuckled easier this time. “Did any of them let slip they’d been up here before Tuesday?”
“They were too busy asking if men minded when I checked their prostate. Told them I had guys lining up for a second opinion.”
He laughed and felt the coiled spring in his chest unwind a turn or two. “Did anyone say anything about Chaz being there?”
“I was roundabout in asking, so as not to put them on guard. Told them I knew him through my residency, which is true, and that I wanted to say hello. To a man they said he was in New York, down with the flu.”
“Did you believe them?”
“I think they believed it.”
More Braden alibis, he thought, sinking back into the driver’s seat. They passed the floodlit grounds of Nucleus Laboratories. The sodium lamps cast the swirling snow in a giant web of yellow light, at the center of which sprawled the darkened building.
He’d phone Victor Feldt in the morning, although he wasn’t optimistic about finding any leads there. But the prospect of calling up the list of doctors Victor had provided him with seemed a tad more interesting now. They were an A-list, the kind of physicians, apparently, that Charles Braden referred his friends to.
Victor heard the car drive up.
He switched off his computer screen and peeked out the window.
Four men in bright ski outfits got out of a red sedan.
Lost tourists? He opened the front door before they came all the way up the walk. “Evening. Can I help you-”
That’s when he saw the black stubby cylinders two of the men carried at their sides, muzzles pointed to the ground.
Chapter 15
Victor slammed the door shut, snapped the lock, and ran for the phone. He’d barely dialed nine when the line went dead. He raced for the rear of the house. In seconds he was through the kitchen and out the back entrance. A fifty-yard sprint through a half foot of snow and he’d be into the forest. Moonlight glinted off the snow, revealing the black line of trees. The shouts of the intruders indicated they were still at the front of the house.
“Unlock the door.”
“We’ll go easy on you.”
“Liquor and money’s all we want.”
Yeah, sure.
The terrain sloped upward, and the leather soles of his shoes kept slipping. After a dozen paces he already gasped for air. He tried to accelerate, only to send his feet flying out from under him, catapulting to his hands and knees. The icy surface of the snow abraded his wrists. Sliding in every direction, he finally managed to get up and look over his shoulder, expecting to see that the four men had realized he made a break for it and were coming after him.
Not yet.
He started off again, still struggling to get some traction and gulping for air. By two dozen paces, he sobbed every time he exhaled, his chest burning as it heaved in and out. He continued on, choking, gasping, weak with fear, but halfway to cover. Once in the trees, he’d at least have a chance to dodge a bullet.
His feet slipped again. He pitched face first to the ground. Bits of slush filled his mouth, stuffed his nose, and dripped off his glasses. He spit and wiped his lenses so he could see. Panting fast and loud, he rose, then stumbled ahead. The shouts from behind grew louder.
“Stop!”
“We just want to talk with you.”
“Come here.”
He turned his head, straining to see where they were, but could only make out watery shadows.
He moved faster now, taking longer strides, the extra effort exacting its toll. Fatigue seared the front of his thighs until he could barely lift them. The incline steepened, doubling his workload.
He never once wondered why his pursuers were after him. Gay-bashers were a constant threat anywhere. Someone in town probably told these clowns about “the queer” living on Route 9, and this was some sick fuck’s idea of how to end the hunting season. But how far would they take it? That was the life-or-death question. That they had guns didn’t look good.
The shouts grew closer.
A tightness ripped through his chest.
“Oh, God, no,” he whimpered.
By the time he reached the forest’s edge he felt squeezed in a vise from the neck down and was staggering, his torso heaving, his heart hammering the inside of his ribs. He ducked behind the first tree he fell against and doubled over to get his breath, at the same time trying to make out the men.
A collective smudge jogged toward him through the gloom, at thirty yards and closing. He took extra big lungfuls of the cold, but couldn’t relieve the smothering sensation. Waves of nausea lapped at the back of his throat, and cold sweat soaked his shirt.
Something zinged by his ear and embedded itself in the bark above his head with a loud thwack.
No question now, this pack was out for slaughter.
He pushed off from the trunk he’d been leaning against and lurched deeper into the woods.
Angry cries ordered him to halt.
Panic drove him. He repeatedly churned up muddy snow, getting nowhere; the clamp that had locked around his chest grew tighter. Yet he fought to move forward, crawling and pulling himself along, grasping at any root or bush to get a handhold.
“Give it up, asshole!” More bullets hit the snow around him.
He knew he was doomed, but his instinct to survive wouldn’t let him yield. Even as they encircled him, stood over him, taunted and goaded him, he writhed to gain a few inches, to breathe a few more breaths.
“Hey, he don’t look so good.”
“Maybe he’s having a heart attack.”
The pain grew as if his heart were ballooning out of his chest, ready to burst, and the agony became unbearable. Yet he could still see their boots at his head, hear their voices.
“This is better than any accidental fire.”
“He won’t have a mark on him.”
“I better go back and reconnect his phone line. The snow will cover the tracks. Nobody will even know we’ve been here, let alone look for bullets.”
Why didn’t they kill him? Have done with it. He found himself begging that they end it. But as he tried to speak, his lips, embedded in snow, barely moved, and he had to lick them free.
“Hey, he’s trying to say something.”
One of the men bent down, removing a ski mask and placing his ear near Victor’s mouth. “Wants us to finish him off,” he announced after listening to his whispers.
“Give him your cock to suck. That ought to do it,” one of them added.
More cackling came from above as the kneeling man slowly got back on his feet. “I’ll give you a gun barrel to suck on, you make another crack like that,” he said, obviously not amused.
Victor hadn’t the breath to cry or the strength to budge. Sinking into a delirium of pain and asphyxia, his mind still flickered with life, firing out fragments of thought, the last dispatches of a dying brain.
They weren’t gay-bashers. Hadn’t once called him a fag.